System and method for enhancing user experience in a search environment

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for enhancing user experience in a search environment are provided. The method includes displaying results of a search operation, the display comprising an extract of at least one search result; the extract comprising a combination of a text and at least one inline visual representation.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No.14/679,518 entitled “System And Method For Enhancing User Experience InA Search Environment” filed on Apr. 6, 2015 which claims priority toU.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/975,861 entitled “System andMethod For Enhancing User Experience In A Search Environment” filed onApr. 6, 2014, which are incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure generally relates to search engine operations andmethod to display the results of a search operation. Particularly, thedisclosure relates to improving user experience in viewing the searchresults and more particularly to a system and method for displayingsearch results accompanied with inline visual representations.

BACKGROUND

The statements in this section merely provide background informationrelated to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.

It is commonly required in the field of Information Technology toprovide a service that searches through data sources. The data sourceherein may refer to data and/or document(s) on the Internet, intranet,storage devices, and so on. In order to use a search engine, a userseeking information on a desired topic generally inputs a search queryconsisting of keyword(s) or phrase(s) relevant to the topic into thesearch interface of the search engine. In response, the search enginetypically displays a report with a prioritized list of links pointing torelevant documents containing the search keywords. Oftentimes, a shortsummary of text i.e., extract/snippet is also included for each result.The extract/snippet is that portion or portions of the text in thedocument that contain the keywords from the search query.

While the popularity of search engines may rely on various factors;relevancy of the search results and the manner in which they aredisplayed play an important role in enhancing a user experience. Knownsearch engines like Google®, Bing®, Yahoo® etc. typically display asearch result page comprising multiple search results and for eachsearch result an extract in a textual format. This is a disadvantagesince some important visual cues in the document may be lost, therebymaking the results less useful to a user; One example of suchdisadvantage is when image(s) are present in that portion of thedocument that contain the query keywords. The search engines onlydisplay text around the relevant portion that makes it less useful tothe user.

Systems for searching the Intranets, Extranets, Local Area Networks,individual computers and even single documents also generally sufferfrom these same drawbacks.

In view of the above drawbacks, there remains a need for an effectivemethod of searching data sources for useful information relating totopics of interest.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary of the disclosure in orderto provide a basic understanding to the reader. This summary is not anextensive overview of the disclosure and it does not identifykey/critical elements of the disclosure or delineate the scope of thedisclosure. Its sole purpose is to present some concepts disclosedherein in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detaileddescription that is presented later.

Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are directed towards amethod and system for displaying the search results of a searchoperation comprising one or more inline visual representations.

According to the aspects illustrated herein, the present disclosurerelates to a method to display the results of a search operation on atleast one data source, the display comprising an extract of at least onesearch result; the extract comprising a combination of at least onerelevant portion of the text and at least one inline visualrepresentation, wherein the relevant portion and the inline visualrepresentation are in continuation with each other.

In a preferred embodiment, the relevant portion and the inline visualrepresentation are arranged in continuation with each other, inaccordance with their arrangement in the document.

In another embodiment, the relevant portion and the inline visualrepresentation are altered to incorporate the inline visualrepresentation before or after the relevant portion of the text.

In another embodiment, the display of the inline visual representationmay or may not be altered.

In another aspect of the present disclosure, the invention relates to amethod executable on a computing device comprising a processor, memoryand a storage unit to display results of a search operation on at leastone data source(s) comprising document(s), said method comprising: (i)Accepting a search query and identifying search results comprising ofrelevant documents containing the search query in the data source; (ii)Constructing a search extract for each search result comprising arelevant portion(s) of the corresponding document; (iii) Identifyingvisual representation(s) in the search extract; (iv) Determining theproperties of the visual representation(s); (v) Identifying inlinevisual representation(s) from the identified visual representation(s),wherein the inline visual representation comprises a visualrepresentation of a height that is same or smaller as the height of aline of text in which the visual representation occurs; (vi) Optionallyalter the height of a visual representation to form an inline visualrepresentation; (vii) Return the search results comprising of searchextract to the user comprising the inline visual representation.

The visual representation in accordance with the invention are selectedfrom an image, a multimedia object, a video, an audio and combinationsthereof.

The height of the line in accordance with the methods of the inventionmay be calculated by the font size, row height, presentation semanticsand combinations thereof.

In one embodiment, the height of the line of text is a fixed value.

In a preferred embodiment, the fixed value is 30 px.

In another aspect of the present disclosure is provided with a systemcomprising search engine unit. The search engine unit may comprise oneor more logics configured to perform the functions and operationsassociated with the above-disclosed methods.

In another aspect of the present disclosure is provided a computerprogram product executable in a memory of a search engine unit

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The drawings described herein are for illustration purposes only and arenot intended to limit the scope of the present disclosure in anyway.Throughout the disclosure, like elements are represented by likereference numerals, which are given by way of illustration only and thusare not limitative of the various embodiments.

Other objects and advantages of the present disclosure will becomeapparent to those skilled in the art upon reading the following detaileddescription of the preferred embodiments, in conjunction with theaccompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary search environmentin accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an exemplary computing device of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary document comprising inline visualrepresentations.

FIG. 4A depicts portion of exemplary source content data for thedocument of FIG. 3.

FIG. 4B depicts portion of exemplary presentation semantics for thedocument of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 (Prior Art) and FIG. 6 depict an exemplary search operation witha comparative illustration of known prior art methods and methods inaccordance with the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram of a method of displaying search resultscomprising inline visual representations, in accordance with one or moreembodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

It is to be understood that the present disclosure is not limited in itsapplication to the details of construction and the arrangement ofcomponents set forth in the following description or illustrated in thedrawings. The present disclosure is capable of other embodiments and ofbeing practiced or of being carried out in various ways. Also, it is tobe understood that the phraseology and terminology used herein is forthe purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.

The use of “including”, “comprising” or “having” and variations thereofherein is meant to encompass the items listed thereafter and equivalentsthereof as well as additional items. The terms “a” and “an” herein donot denote a limitation of quantity, but rather denote the presence ofat least one of the referenced item. Further, the use of terms “first”,“second”, and “third”, and the like, herein do not denote any order,quantity, or importance, but rather are used to distinguish one elementfrom another.

The disclosure described here is equally applicable to searching andreturning links to any document containing text and optionalpresentation semantics (the look and feel instructions) such as, but notlimited to, HTML, DHTML, XML, SGML, PDF, E-mail, Microsoft® Worddocuments, Microsoft® Power point documents, news group postings,multimedia objects and/or Shockwave Flash files.

Through the length of the specification and claims, the words “extract”and “snippet” are used interchangeably.

The visual representation in accordance with the present disclosure mayinclude an image, audio, video, or multimedia object or identifiers ofsuch image, audio, video or multimedia object.

Inline visual representation in accordance with the present disclosurerefers to any visual representation appearing in the beginning, at theend or in between the relevant text of the extract and appears to be ofthe same height as the line of the text in which the visualrepresentation occurs.

FIG. 1 depicts a search environment 100 in accordance with an exemplaryembodiment of the present disclosure. It will be understood andappreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the computingsystem architecture 100 shown in FIG. 1 is merely an example of onesuitable computing system and is not intended to suggest any limitationas to the scope of use or functionality of the present invention.Neither should the computing system architecture 100 be interpreted ashaving any dependency or requirement related to any singlemodule/component or combination of modules/components illustratedtherein.

The system 100 comprises a search engine unit 110, a client 120 and astorage unit 140. The search engine unit 110, the client 120 and thestorage unit 140 all communicate over a network 130.

The network 130 can include any type of network known in the art orfuture-developed. In this regard, the network 130 may be an Ethernet, alocal area network (LAN), or a wide area network (WAN), e.g., theInternet, or a combination of networks.

The search engine unit 110 may be a dedicated or shared server includingbut not limited to any type of application server, database server, orfile server configurable and combinations thereof. The search engineunit 110 and the client 120 may include, but are not limited to, acomputer, handheld unit, mobile unit, consumer electronic unit, or thelike.

The exemplary search engine unit 110 comprises visual representationidentification logic 111, visual representation property determininglogic 112 and search result constructing logic 113.

In the exemplary search engine unit 110, the visual representationidentification logic 111 may be configured to identify presence orexistence of the visual representation(s) within the snippet of thesearch result.

The search engine unit 110 further comprises the visual representationproperty determining logic 112. The visual representation propertydetermining logic 112 may be configured to determine the properties ofone or more visual representations which are identified by the visualrepresentation identification logic 111. The properties identified bythe visual representation property determining logic 112 may be, forexample, type, size, original dimensions, display dimensions, displaylocation, creation date, author, color, file format and the like.

The search engine unit 110 further comprises the search resultconstructing logic 113. The search result constructing logic 113 may beconfigured to construct the search result. The process of constructingthe search result may include identifying inline visualrepresentation(s) within a search extract from among the visualrepresentations identified by the visual representation identifyinglogic (111) by comparing the height of visual representation (identifiedby the visual representation property determining logic (112)) with theheight of the line of the text in the extract and determining if thevisual representation is inline visual representation.

In one embodiment, visual representations may be modified. For example,the modifications that may be performed on the visual representation maybe converting the color visual representation to black and white visualrepresentation and/or converting black and white visual representationto color visual representation, resizing the visual representation toone or more dimensions of a line, resizing the visual representation toa fixed height, converting the file format and the like. The searchresult constructing logic 113 may also be configured to displayidentifiers/labels in place of or in addition to inline visualrepresentation(s).

The storage unit 140 is configured to store information associated withsearch results, visual representations, or the like. In variousembodiments, such information may include, without limitation, domains,URLs, webpages, websites, visual representations, properties of visualrepresentations, indexes, information associated therewith, and thelike. In embodiments, the storage unit 140 is configured to besearchable for one or more of the items stored in association therewith.It will be understood and appreciated by those of ordinary skill in theart that the information stored in association with the storage unit 140may be configurable and may include any information relevant to searchresults, visual representations, or the like. The content and volume ofsuch information are not intended to limit the scope of embodiments ofthe present disclosure in any way. Further, though illustrated as asingle, independent component, the storage unit 140 may, in fact, be aplurality of storage units, for instance a database cluster, portions ofwhich may reside on the search engine unit 110, the client 120, anotherexternal computing device (not shown), and/or any combination thereof.Moreover, the storage unit 140 may be included within the search engineunit 110 or client 120 as a computer-storage medium. The single unitdepictions are meant for clarity, not to limit the scope of embodimentsin any form.

A user 122 through the client logic 121 on the client 120 may enter asearch query consisting of keyword(s) which may identify the type ofinformation that the user is interested in retrieving. The client logic121 may comprise, for example, an Internet browser; however, other typesof client logic 121 for interfacing with the user 122 and forcommunicating with the search engine unit 110 may be used in otherembodiments of the present disclosure. The client logic 121 transmitsthe user search query to the search engine unit 110 via the network 130.Upon receiving the user search query the search engine unit 110 examinesthe storage unit 140 and compiles a prioritized list of documentscontaining all or some of the keyword(s) and returns the search resultscomprising inline visual representation(s) to the client logic 121 whichdisplays the results to the user 122 in a window.

In some preferred embodiments, the search engine unit 110 is shown inFIG. 2. It should be noted, however, that embodiments are not limited toimplementation on such computing devices, but may be implemented on anyof a variety of different types of computing units within the scope ofembodiments hereof. The search engine unit 110 (as shown in FIG. 1) isonly one example of a suitable computing/search environment and it isnot intended to suggest any limitation as to the scope of use orfunctionality of the disclosure.

In some embodiments, the search engine unit 110 may include a bus 206, aprocessor 201, memory 202, network device 203, input device 204, and anoutput device 205. Bus 206 may include a path that permits communicationamong the components of the search engine unit 110.

The memory 202 stores the visual representation identification logic111, the visual representation property determining logic 112, and thesearch result constructing logic 113 as software in memory 202.

The memory 202 may be any type of computer memory known in the art orfuture-developed for electronically storing data and/or logic, includingvolatile and non-volatile memory. In this regard, memory 202 can includerandom access memory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, anymagnetic computer storage unit, including hard disks, floppy discs, ormagnetic tapes, and optical discs.

The processor 201 comprises processing hardware for interpreting orexecuting tasks or instructions stored in memory 202. Note that theprocessor 201 may be a microprocessor, a digital processor, or othertype of circuitry configured to run and/or execute instructions.

The network device 203 may be any type of network unit (e.g., a modem)known in the art or future-developed for communicating over a network130 (FIG. 1). In this regard, the search engine unit 110 (FIG. 1)communicates with the storage unit 140 (FIG. 1) and the client 120(FIG. 1) over the network 130 (FIG. 1) via the network device 203.

The input device 204 is any type of input unit known in the art orfuture-developed for receiving data. As an example, the input unit 204may be a keyboard, a mouse, a touch screen, a serial port, a scanner, acamera, or a microphone.

The output device 205 may be any type of output unit known in the art orfuture-developed for displaying or outputting data. As an example, theoutput device 205 may be a liquid crystal display (LCD) or other type ofvideo display unit, a speaker, or a printer.

Note that the disclosure may also be practiced in a distributedcomputing environment where tasks or instructions of search engine unit110 (FIG. 1) are performed by multiple computing units communicativelycoupled to the network.

Further note that, the search engine unit 110 (FIG. 1) components may beimplemented by software, hardware, firmware or any combination thereof.In the exemplary search engine unit 110, depicted by FIG. 1, all thecomponents are implemented by software and stored in memory 202.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a portion of a document 300 identifiedby the URL 301. The document 300 comprises an exemplary table 304.Exemplary inline visual representations (images in this example) 302 aand 302 b that occur in between textual formats are illustrated in FIG.3. Note that the height of the images 302 a and 302 b is the same as theline height of the text surrounding the images.

FIG. 4A depicts portion of exemplary source content data 400 for thedocument 300 of FIG. 3. The text enclosed by the table tag 401 depicts aportion of the table 304 (FIG. 3) source content. The source content fortable rows 303 a and 303 b is enclosed within the tr tags 403 a and 403b respectively. The source content for the images 302 a and 302 b isenclosed within the img tags 402 a and 402 b respectively.

Note that while the images are represented using the img tag in theexemplary embodiment, a variety of ways may be used to add visualrepresentations to the source content including but not limited to,background-image css property, audio tag, audio controls tag, video tagetc., The visual representation identification logic 111 (FIG. 1) may beconfigured to identify the above variety of ways.

FIG. 4B depicts portion of exemplary presentation semantics for thedocument of FIG. 3. In the exemplary presentation semantics, the heightof the text within the table 304 (FIG. 3) is specified as “14 px” 411.The search result constructing logic 113 (FIG. 3) may parse thepresentation semantics 410 to determine the height of text.

Note that in one embodiment, the presentation semantics may be implicit,i.e., the presentation semantics are not explicitly specified butdefault values are assumed in which case the search result constructinglogic 113 (FIG. 1) uses the default values in computing the height oftext.

FIG. 5 shows a known prior art method of displaying results of a searchoperation. When a user enters a search query 501, the search engineperforms a search operation and returns the search results to the userin the form of a result page 500. The search result 502 comprises asnippet 503 from the document 300 (FIG. 3) identified by the URL 301(FIG. 3). The snippet 503 comprising of text and no inline visual images302 a (FIG. 3) and 302 b (FIG. 3).

FIG. 6 depicts portion of search results page 600 in accordance withembodiment of the present disclosure. When the user enters a searchquery 501 (FIG. 5), the search engine unit 110 (FIG. 1) may returnsearch results to the user in the form of the search result page 600.The search result 602 comprises a snippet 603 from the document 300(FIG. 3) identified by the URL 301. The snippet 603 comprises relevantportions of the document 300 comprising relevant text and inline visualimages 302 a and 302 b (FIG. 3) to enhance the user experience. In theexemplary embodiment, the visual representation identification logic 111(FIG. 1) may identify the images 302 a (FIG. 3) and 302 b (FIG. 3) bythe img tags 402 a (FIG. 4) and 402 b (FIG. 4) within in the sourcecontent of the document 300 (FIG. 3) comprising the snippet 603. In theexemplary embodiment, the images 302 a and 302 b (FIG. 3) displayheights are calculated from the images by the visual representationproperty determining logic 112 and compared with line height of text inthe table rows 303 a (FIG. 3) and 303 b (FIG. 3) comprising the extract603. The line height for the text is determined by the search resultconstructing logic 113 (FIG. 1) from the presentation semantics of thetext (See FIG. 4). As the height of the images is not greater than theline height which makes them inline, the images are not altered.

Note that in one embodiment, the visual representation displaydimensions may be specified as part of the presentation semantics, inwhich case the visual representation property determining logic 112infers height of the visual representations from the presentationsemantics.

Note that in one embodiment, the search result constructing logic 113(FIG. 1) may infer the line height of the surrounding text from, forexample, but not limited to, font size, row height etc. For example, ifthe line height is not specified in the presentation semantics file, theline height may be inferred from the font size property.

Note that in one embodiment, the search result constructing logic 113(FIG. 1) may assume a fixed value for relevant text line height and allvisual representations with height less than the fixed value may beconsidered inline visual representations. For example, in oneembodiment, the line height may be assumed as 30 px and images withheight less than or equal to 30 px are assumed to be inline images.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating one method in accordance with thepresent disclosure. In step 702, the search engine unit 110 (FIG. 1) mayaccept the search query comprising the keyword(s)/search term(s). Instep 704, the search engine unit 110 (FIG. 1) may find the relevantsearch results. For each relevant search result, step 706-712 may beperformed by the search engine unit 110 (FIG. 1). In step 706 thesnippet is extracted from the corresponding document. In step 708, thevisual representation identification logic 111 (FIG. 1) may identifyvisual representation(s) in the document comprising the snippet. In step710, the visual representation property determining logic 112 (FIG. 1)may identify the properties of the visual representation(s). In step712, the search result constructing logic 113 (FIG. 1) may identify theheight of the line of text and compare the height of visualrepresentation(s) with the line height and modify the visualrepresentation(s) if required to an inline visual representation. Instep 716, the search results comprising text and inline visualrepresentation(s) may be returned.

In some embodiments, the search results may be displayed without theinline visual representations appended to the snippet. On identifying auser action, for example clicking a link “show inline visualrepresentations”, the inline visual representations of the correspondingdocument may be displayed as part of the search results.

The claimed subject matter has been provided here with reference to oneor more features or embodiments. Those skilled in the art will recognizeand appreciate that, despite of the detailed nature of the exemplaryembodiments provided here, changes and modifications may be applied tosaid embodiments without limiting or departing from the generallyintended scope. These and various other adaptations and combinations ofthe embodiments provided here are within the scope of the disclosedsubject matter as defined by the claims and their full set ofequivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method executable on a computing devicecomprising a processor, memory and a storage unit to display results ofa search operation on at least one data source comprising document(s),said method comprising: i. Accepting a search query from a usercomprising of keyword(s) and identifying by the processor document(s) inthe data source comprising the keyword(s) in response to the searchquery; ii. Constructing a search result in the memory by the processorfor at least one identified document comprising of a relevant portion(s)of text in the document; iii. Identifying by the processor visualrepresentation(s) appearing in the beginning, at the end or in betweenthe relevant portion(s) of text in the document; iv. Identifying by theprocessor inline visual representation(s) from the identified visualrepresentation(s) by comparing height of the visual representation toheight of text in the document in which the visual representation occursand determining that the visual representation is inline if the heightof the visual representation is same or smaller than the height of thetext in the document; vi. Return the search results comprising of therelevant portion(s) of text and the inline visual representation(s) tothe user.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein arrangement of relevantportion(s) of the text and the inline visual representation(s) in thesearch result is in accordance with arrangement of the relevantportion(s) of the text and the inline visual representation(s) in thedocument.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the height of text is afixed value.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the fixed value for theheight text is 30 px.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the inlinevisual representation is displayed differently from the inline visualrepresentation in the document.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein theinline visual representation is displayed similar to the inline visualrepresentation present in the document.
 7. The method of claim 1,wherein the visual representation is an image.
 8. The method of claim 1,wherein the visual representation is a multimedia object.
 9. The methodof claim 1, wherein the visual representation is a video.
 10. The methodof claim 1, wherein the visual representation is an audio.
 11. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the inline visual representations(s) areplaced before or after the relevant portion(s) of text in the searchresult.
 12. The method of claim 1, further comprising altering theheight of the visual representation to form an inline visualrepresentation.